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<div class="section" id="module-pygame.image">
<span id="pygame-image"></span><dl class="definition module">
<dt class="title module">
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pygame.image</span></tt></dt>
<dd><div class="line-block">
<div class="line"><span class="summaryline">pygame module for image transfer</span></div>
</div>
<table border="1" class="toc docutils">
<colgroup>
<col width="28%" />
<col width="1%" />
<col width="71%" />
</colgroup>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td><a class="toc reference external" href="image.html#pygame.image.load">pygame.image.load</a></td>
<td>—</td>
<td>load new image from a file</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><a class="toc reference external" href="image.html#pygame.image.save">pygame.image.save</a></td>
<td>—</td>
<td>save an image to disk</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><a class="toc reference external" href="image.html#pygame.image.get_extended">pygame.image.get_extended</a></td>
<td>—</td>
<td>test if extended image formats can be loaded</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><a class="toc reference external" href="image.html#pygame.image.tostring">pygame.image.tostring</a></td>
<td>—</td>
<td>transfer image to string buffer</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><a class="toc reference external" href="image.html#pygame.image.fromstring">pygame.image.fromstring</a></td>
<td>—</td>
<td>create new Surface from a string buffer</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><a class="toc reference external" href="image.html#pygame.image.frombuffer">pygame.image.frombuffer</a></td>
<td>—</td>
<td>create a new Surface that shares data inside a string buffer</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>The image module contains functions for loading and saving pictures, as well as
transferring Surfaces to formats usable by other packages. .</p>
<p>Note that there is no Image class; an image is loaded as a Surface object. The
Surface class allows manipulation (drawing lines, setting pixels, capturing
regions, etc.).</p>
<p>The image module is a required dependency of Pygame, but it only optionally
supports any extended file formats. By default it can only load uncompressed
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">BMP</span></tt> images. When built with full image support, the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pygame.image.load()</span></tt>
function can support the following formats.</p>
<blockquote>
<div><ul class="simple">
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">JPG</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PNG</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">GIF</span></tt> (non animated)</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">BMP</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PCX</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">TGA</span></tt> (uncompressed)</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">TIF</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">LBM</span></tt> (and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PBM</span></tt>)</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PBM</span></tt> (and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PGM</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PPM</span></tt>)</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">XPM</span></tt></li>
</ul>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Saving images only supports a limited set of formats. You can save to the
following formats.</p>
<blockquote>
<div><ul class="simple">
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">BMP</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">TGA</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PNG</span></tt></li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">JPEG</span></tt></li>
</ul>
</div></blockquote>
<p><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PNG</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">JPEG</span></tt> saving new in pygame 1.8.</p>
<dl class="definition function">
<dt class="title" id="pygame.image.load">
<tt class="descclassname">pygame.image.</tt><tt class="descname">load</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#pygame.image.load" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><div class="line-block">
<div class="line"><span class="summaryline">load new image from a file</span></div>
<div class="line"><span class="signature">load(filename) -&gt; Surface</span></div>
<div class="line"><span class="signature">load(fileobj, namehint=&#8221;&#8221;) -&gt; Surface</span></div>
</div>
<p>Load an image from a file source. You can pass either a filename or a Python
file-like object.</p>
<p>Pygame will automatically determine the image type (e.g., <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">GIF</span></tt> or bitmap)
and create a new Surface object from the data. In some cases it will need to
know the file extension (e.g., <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">GIF</span></tt> images should end in &#8221;.gif&#8221;). If you
pass a raw file-like object, you may also want to pass the original filename
as the namehint argument.</p>
<p>The returned Surface will contain the same color format, colorkey and alpha
transparency as the file it came from. You will often want to call
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">Surface.convert()</span></tt> with no arguments, to create a copy that will draw
more quickly on the screen.</p>
<p>For alpha transparency, like in .png images use the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">convert_alpha()</span></tt>
method after loading so that the image has per pixel transparency.</p>
<p>Pygame may not always be built to support all image formats. At minimum it
will support uncompressed <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">BMP</span></tt>. If <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pygame.image.get_extended()</span></tt>
returns &#8216;True&#8217;, you should be able to load most images (including png, jpg
and gif).</p>
<p>You should use <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">os.path.join()</span></tt> for compatibility.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="n">eg</span><span class="o">.</span> <span class="n">asurf</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">pygame</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">image</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">load</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">os</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">path</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">join</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&#39;data&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">&#39;bla.png&#39;</span><span class="p">))</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="definition function">
<dt class="title" id="pygame.image.save">
<tt class="descclassname">pygame.image.</tt><tt class="descname">save</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#pygame.image.save" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><div class="line-block">
<div class="line"><span class="summaryline">save an image to disk</span></div>
<div class="line"><span class="signature">save(Surface, filename) -&gt; None</span></div>
</div>
<p>This will save your Surface as either a <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">BMP</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">TGA</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PNG</span></tt>, or
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">JPEG</span></tt> image. If the filename extension is unrecognized it will default to
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">TGA</span></tt>. Both <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">TGA</span></tt>, and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">BMP</span></tt> file formats create uncompressed files.</p>
<p><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PNG</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">JPEG</span></tt> saving new in pygame 1.8.</p>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="definition function">
<dt class="title" id="pygame.image.get_extended">
<tt class="descclassname">pygame.image.</tt><tt class="descname">get_extended</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#pygame.image.get_extended" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><div class="line-block">
<div class="line"><span class="summaryline">test if extended image formats can be loaded</span></div>
<div class="line"><span class="signature">get_extended() -&gt; bool</span></div>
</div>
<p>If pygame is built with extended image formats this function will return
True. It is still not possible to determine which formats will be available,
but generally you will be able to load them all.</p>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="definition function">
<dt class="title" id="pygame.image.tostring">
<tt class="descclassname">pygame.image.</tt><tt class="descname">tostring</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#pygame.image.tostring" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><div class="line-block">
<div class="line"><span class="summaryline">transfer image to string buffer</span></div>
<div class="line"><span class="signature">tostring(Surface, format, flipped=False) -&gt; string</span></div>
</div>
<p>Creates a string that can be transferred with the &#8216;fromstring&#8217; method in
other Python imaging packages. Some Python image packages prefer their
images in bottom-to-top format (PyOpenGL for example). If you pass True for
the flipped argument, the string buffer will be vertically flipped.</p>
<p>The format argument is a string of one of the following values. Note that
only 8bit Surfaces can use the &#8220;P&#8221; format. The other formats will work for
any Surface. Also note that other Python image packages support more formats
than Pygame.</p>
<blockquote>
<div><ul class="simple">
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">P</span></tt>, 8bit palettized Surfaces</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">RGB</span></tt>, 24bit image</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">RGBX</span></tt>, 32bit image with unused space</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">RGBA</span></tt>, 32bit image with an alpha channel</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">ARGB</span></tt>, 32bit image with alpha channel first</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">RGBA_PREMULT</span></tt>, 32bit image with colors scaled by alpha channel</li>
<li><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">ARGB_PREMULT</span></tt>, 32bit image with colors scaled by alpha channel, alpha channel first</li>
</ul>
</div></blockquote>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="definition function">
<dt class="title" id="pygame.image.fromstring">
<tt class="descclassname">pygame.image.</tt><tt class="descname">fromstring</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#pygame.image.fromstring" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><div class="line-block">
<div class="line"><span class="summaryline">create new Surface from a string buffer</span></div>
<div class="line"><span class="signature">fromstring(string, size, format, flipped=False) -&gt; Surface</span></div>
</div>
<p>This function takes arguments similar to <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pygame.image.tostring()</span></tt>. The
size argument is a pair of numbers representing the width and height. Once
the new Surface is created you can destroy the string buffer.</p>
<p>The size and format image must compute the exact same size as the passed
string buffer. Otherwise an exception will be raised.</p>
<p>See the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pygame.image.frombuffer()</span></tt> method for a potentially faster way to
transfer images into Pygame.</p>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="definition function">
<dt class="title" id="pygame.image.frombuffer">
<tt class="descclassname">pygame.image.</tt><tt class="descname">frombuffer</tt><big>(</big><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#pygame.image.frombuffer" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><div class="line-block">
<div class="line"><span class="summaryline">create a new Surface that shares data inside a string buffer</span></div>
<div class="line"><span class="signature">frombuffer(string, size, format) -&gt; Surface</span></div>
</div>
<p>Create a new Surface that shares pixel data directly from the string buffer.
This method takes the same arguments as <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pygame.image.fromstring()</span></tt>, but
is unable to vertically flip the source data.</p>
<p>This will run much faster than <a class="tooltip reference internal" href="#pygame.image.fromstring" title=""><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">pygame.image.fromstring()</span></tt><span class="tooltip-content">create new Surface from a string buffer</span></a>, since no
pixel data must be allocated and copied.</p>
</dd></dl>

</dd></dl>

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